We must count the deaths from shutdowns as well as from coronavirus

I can not determine, in the short run, which is worse, the deaths caused from the shutdown or deaths from people just living their lives as normal. So, we look at what is being said in the media regarding what we are seeing or will see.

Job losses cause extreme suffering. Every 1 percent hike in the unemployment rate will likely produce a 3.3 percent increase in drug-overdose deaths and a 0.99 percent increase in suicides, according to data from the National Bureau of Economic Research and the medical journal Lancet.

These are facts based on past experience, not models. If unemployment hits 32 percent, some 77,000 Americans are likely to die from suicide and drug overdoses as a result of layoffs. Deaths of despair.

Then add the predictable deaths from alcohol abuse caused by ­unemployment. Health economist Michael French from the University of Miami found a “significant association between job loss” and binge drinking and alcoholism.

The impact of layoffs goes ­beyond suicide, drug overdosing and drinking, however. Overall, the death rate for an unemployed person is 63 percent higher than for someone with a job, according to findings in the journal Social Science & Medicine.

Now do the math: Layoff-related deaths could far outnumber the 60,400 coronavirus deaths predicted by University of Washington researchers. This comparison isn’t meant to understate the horror of the coronavirus for those who get it and their families.

But heavy-handed state edicts to close all “nonessential businesses” need to be reassessed in light of the predictable harm to the lives, livelihoods and health of the uninfected.